A Measurement of the Neutral B Meson Lifetime using Partially Reconstructed B0 --> D*-pi+ Decays

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of the neutral B meson lifetime using partial reconstruction of B0 --> D*- pi+ decays with data from the BABAR detector, achieving a lifetime of approximately 1.51 ps.

Contribution

It introduces a partial reconstruction technique for measuring B0 meson lifetime, improving efficiency and accuracy over previous methods.

Findings

Measured B0 lifetime: 1.510 +/- 0.040 +/- 0.038 ps

Used partial reconstruction with 6971 signal events

Achieved precise lifetime measurement with BABAR data

Abstract

The neutral B meson lifetime has been measured with the data collected by the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring during the year 2000 for a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb-1. The B0 --> D*- pi+ decays have been selected with a partial reconstruction method in which only the fast pion from the B0 decay and the slow pion from D*- --> D0 bar pi- are reconstructed. The B0 lifetime has been measured to be 1.510 +/- 0.040 +/- 0.038 ps with a sample of 6971 +/- 241 reconstructed signal events.